Metal & Math

My wife and I were buddies before we were anything else, but we decided to give the whole relationship thing a go on the way home from a conference, somewhere over Iowa. There have been a couple of plane songs on MJ over the last few months, thinking specifically of Bud, and i've been thinking since hearing those tunes that i need to write a plane song about that cool and scary moment, sitting across from each other on the plane, knowing that everything was going to change and would it work, because we were really good friends, we had a lot of fun, and didn't want to blow that. Anyway here goes.

Also musically the chorus owes a lot to Quincy Jones, specifically that super cool early MJ period, around the time of MJ's Off The Wall album, which i've been listening to a lot, ironically enough for a few weeks before the news that MJ had died.

booty shaking
i love how you mix such disparate elements (indie, funk) and keep the quirk factor high. my wife and I were friends too, and I can remember the exhilaration of that moment (although I didn't dare breach the topic while trapped in a plane). great tune.

It's The Air Above
You just love it when you can throw some lightly salted geek into your hillbilly motown sound!

Love the story behind the lyrics.

What's funny to me is that in most Tempie Toons it's the hand claps, the sticks clinking, the whistling, the horns, and the other crazy percussive noises get more attention than your great guitar playing! Really tasty licks, and of course the bass line is fab.

Man-O-Man
My wife doesn't get cool songs like this. MacJams has great wife songs. I need to get crackin'. My wife and I were buddies, too. We even went through a "relationships are for posers" period. What dorks. That chorus is blowing my mind. Everything about your sound is legit. Nothing contrived. The way you phrase things is integral to your cool sound. "A million pounds of metal and some fancy math". Good lord I love that line.

Man-O
nothing better than having a friend in the house - you laugh more, and if you laugh more you live longer, so that's good right? really glad you liked the chorus, i really dig this one, it makes me think i'm fourteen and listening to denise williams on the footloose soundtrack at the pool lol.

tempie and the jets
i used to fly for work all the time until my wife "grounded me" - i don't know why women these days think they need help with things like babies, i mean whine whine - anyway now i don't fly much, and i get to actually see my child. glad you liked the tune dude.

wah guitar, disco bass, whistling and handclaps all esp. enjoyed.
goes without saying your lyrics are great, clever and heartfelt at the same time.
instrumental break with the little videogame sound also superb.
re being a lightly salted geek, that's only true if you really calculated the weight of the plane.

polka polka polka
no accordions were harmed in the making of the tune. glad you got a sense of punk, sometimes that's lost in the pop. thanks for the listen too - i'm headed to check out your collab with ktb...

theiving
man i'm always so glad to hear that somebody thinks a tune is "refreshing", because everything that can be done has been done - so if i've got it to the point that its refreshing, it means i'm getting to be a pretty good theif lol. thanks for the listen and glad you liked it dude.

Wide open...
... dude! From that first little twang on the ole Delta King this little choon kicks ass. Whistling!!! Man you did whistling!!
Great choon Craig, the Tempie sound has matured to a trademark. I'm constantly amazed at the way you integrate funk, punk and indie rock into a cohesive and entertaining song collection worthy of commercial release.
Thanks for another kick in the ass!

kick it!
the tempie shitkickers are always poised and ready. and i come from a long line of whistlers, from wales to the west virginia coal mines. it's really our only family talent. aside from drinking. glad you liked it dude!

Your words & music are so well crafted; they just totally marry. I think if I was in the band Orson, I would hand all the cash back to anyone that paid for 'No Tomorrow' with a note saying, "Sorry, people, this is the song we 'should' have written...take your dough and go buy Metal & Math while we delete our effort".

This is ice-cold cool. You're singing is right on the money - well done, man! I love it to bits! Summer is here!!!
Like Bud, I too get the Princely vibe, and that's a difficult one to pull off for anyone other than the wee man himself.

i have
a lot of catching up to do with your stuff, and if it's all as good as this i'm in for a swell afternoon. this is so great. makes me feel good! so refreshingly original yet familiar. cool song daddy-o, cool song.

catching up
hey dude thanks for dropping by and thanks for checking out the other tunes too. i was hoping you'd take a listen, i'm always curious to see what you think. also glad it made you feel good enough to use the phrase daddy-o, which more people should use more often...

Great jam
Lots of interesting things going on here. Really dig that chorus, but the chorus is set up perfectly by those verses. Well done. I'm curious... what Adam Sandler movie? I'm going to guess Happy Gilmore.

Back for more
Where did you get the sax sound? Is that just midi? It sounds so cool. It reminds me of They Might Be Giants... Apollo 18 to be specific. You know just the right touch of everything. When I listen to your tracks it makes me think my "icing" is always too linear. You've got a great feel for what a tune needs. Jealous.

icing
man i love they might be giants. a more recent "version" of that band is the sprites, if you havn't heard them check them out, basically one guy but the same quirky/smart type of tunes. another great band in the same vein is tulleycraft, but anyway the sax is just the standard GB alto sax sound. it sounds pretty legit if you keep it simple.

glad you like the songs dude my stuff is an acquired taste, people either like it or hate it so i'm glad you like it lol.

..
First song Ive listened to of yours - thanks for commenting on my songs btw.much appreciated.Straight off - what an original and fresh sound you have both lyrically and overall style.Very cool - like it very much,specially all the space you get in there.Look forward to exploring more - RG